Comments on: More on the role of science in NASA

By: P. Edward Murray

P. Edward Murray — Sat, 08 Apr 2006 05:37:06 +0000

I’m personally in favor of a fix to the Hubble or a larger Hubble.

Of course, you can always locate a Telescope on the Moon and even on the Dark Side or even perhaps a Radio Telescope.

But, building on the Moon is going to be rough.
Building a base is not going to be easy, it probably will take a long time because no one has any experience because it’s never been done before.

By: Paul Spudis

Paul Spudis — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 12:42:50 +0000

…That’s in part because Easterbrook didn’t say anything new (in a blog post over two years ago he echoed a theme in his Slate essay that there would be nothing for astronauts at a Moon base to do; one would have imagined that folks like Paul Spudis would have beaten him into submission on this by now.) …

It’s like Dwayne says — you can’t beat Easterbrook into submission. He doesn’t listen and any effort to educate him is doomed to failure. I had a long e-mail exchange with him about the value of the Moon several years ago (pre-Vision) and basically, he’s repeating now what he wrote then.

Anyway, Ken Murphy did a pretty good job of beating him over on Selenian Boondocks the other day:

http://selenianboondocks.blogspot.com/2006/03/death-by-thousand-cuts.html

By: Donald F. Robertson

Donald F. Robertson — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 18:34:44 +0000

Interestingly, while the popular press continues this theme, the scientific press really seems to be changing its tune. This week’s copy of the British journal New Scientist contains a special section on the scientific benefits of a human lunar return. I haven’t read it yet, but the titles probably say it all. Cover = “The Moon: a world of opportunity.” Inside: “Special Report: it’s time to go back.” Subhead: “The ultimate lab. When you’ve squeezed all you can from experiments on Earth, there’s only one place to be.”

Note that New Scientist is the most mainstream of science journals and is a major publisher of want ads for scientific jobs. Combined with a number of similar features, it does begin to look like there may be a major change in scientific opinion regarding human spaceflight.

— Donald

By: Dwayne A. Day

Dwayne A. Day — Mon, 03 Apr 2006 12:52:11 +0000

Easterbrook has been making these kinds of arguments for many years, and one of his more unfortunate characteristics is that he keeps repeating the same factual errors–demonstrating no sign of learning or gaining knowledge over time. An example of one of these mistakes is his claim that NASA has flown no spacecraft to the moon since Apollo. And as I pointed out two years ago, he produced an inflated estimate of the cost of space exploration by essentially counting the lunar goal _twice_ in his calculations. Fortunately, he doesn’t repeat that claim here. Unfortunately he lists one of his areas of expertise (at a think tank where he was a fellow) as space policy, even though I am unaware of him participating in any space policy forums or even attending them. His biggest problem isn’t that he’s _wrong_, it is that he doesn’t understand the issues, and yet is somehow viewed by his fellow journalists as an expert on the subject.

One of his mistakes in this article is failing to recognize a big difference between the JWST telescope and the TPF. JWST is a top priority for astronomers, whereas TPF is not. So while he essentially calls NASA bureaucrats stupid for favoring JWST over TPF, he doesn’t understand that this is based upon strong scientific advice. And if he actually did some research on the subject, he would learn that TPF is not possible to do in a short timeframe. It requires substantial technological development.

But Easterbrook has demonstrated no ability to actually acquire knowledge on this subject. Pointing out his errors simply falls on deaf ears.